Announced: August 2016
Focus region(s): Western Mass (Springfield/Amherst)
Project partners: UMass-Amherst, MassMutual, Baystate Medical Center, Mt. Holyoke College, Thomson-Reuters, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, Burning Glass, Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC).
Background: In August 2016, Gov. Baker joined MassTech to announce an award of up to $5 million to support new data science & cybersecurity courses, as well as new applied research with students, part of an overall $20 million project supported in large part by Springfield-based MassMutual.
The Commonwealth’s investment will help drive the commercialization of new products and ideas, train a leading data science workforce and support collaborative regional economic development activities. The project will support new advanced graphics-processing computer equipment at the Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), accessible to faculty and students via 120 computer terminal workstations at four academic locations (UMass-Amherst, Mt. Holyoke College, UMass Center in Springfield, and the UMass Center at Beacon Hill in Boston). The regional collaboration will also yield a high-level talent and skills pipeline in data analytics and cybersecurity that has the potential to further distinguish the region’s attractiveness for established and growing businesses.
Read the February 2017 news release from UMass-Amherst on the program's initial progress following MassTech's award.
(Photos Courtesy of Thom Kendall, UMass-Amherst.)